RR breaks his silence (barely)
Per the AP: Rodriguez expected to be "exponentially" better next season.
Doubt we'll hear anything more from him tomorrow on this topic, given that he's been hired to talk about NSD, but I guess you never know.
February 1st, 2011 at 7:17 PM ^
He said he wasn't given time to finish the job....HE HAD 3 YEARS!!!!! He didn't talk to the players that were already at MICHIGAN with Carr instead he went straight after pryor and didn't even care about the Wolverines that were already apart of this team. He basically said if they want to go to the nfl let 'em he didn't try to save any of them. Plus all the guys Carr recruited left due to they didn't hear from rr. I'm sorry but I have zero sympathy for the man.
February 1st, 2011 at 7:20 PM ^
You have no clue what you are talking about.
February 1st, 2011 at 7:22 PM ^
February 1st, 2011 at 8:02 PM ^
I'm sure most fans will hold Hoke to the same standards to which they held RR.
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<br>The coach is expected to field a quality team that shows consistent improvement over the course of the season(s). To hell with what the previous guy did or didn't do. The only coach that matters is the one on the field.
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<br>RR would be popular if he'd fielded a good team. Hoke will be unpopular if he has RR's win-percentage. It's not that complicated.
February 1st, 2011 at 9:00 PM ^
February 1st, 2011 at 10:00 PM ^
Enough excuses for RR. He inherited a solid defense and offense lacking enough talent (of course, he failed to keep two NFL receivers and an NFL QB). BH inherits offensive talent (having retained the star players) and an unfathomably bad defense. Coaches generally don't walk into a rosy situation - there's a reason (unless retirement) that the previous coach is gone.
February 1st, 2011 at 7:26 PM ^
He's right
It would have been an improvement next year even without Forcier
Real shame he didn't get a chance to shut critics up
February 1st, 2011 at 7:27 PM ^
2008
2009
2010
February 1st, 2011 at 9:00 PM ^
3-9 5-7 7-5
Yep. Let's take a look at the three years.
dahblue your hatred for RR is reaching legendary status!
February 1st, 2011 at 9:25 PM ^
7-5 means he could have gone either way, and he didn't. 8-5 and he's still the coach. But it does make a difference in profession in the loss column.
February 1st, 2011 at 9:42 PM ^
...and you're ok with those numbers??? 7-5 without a win over OSU or MSU? Blowouts against all serious competition? Bottom of the conference? C'mon now.
February 1st, 2011 at 7:27 PM ^
in December and was probably contemplating bringing him back. But the embarassing one-sided defeat in the Gator Bowl tipped the scale against him. Way it goes. Either way, he couldn't have been too surprised given the awful results of his 3 year tenure. Despite what Coach says, the defense was showing ZERO signs of improvement under GERG. And DB had no confidence that it was going to be better significantly in 2011.
Anyway, it's time to move on and embrace the new staff and not dwell on the past. Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who...
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February 1st, 2011 at 9:49 PM ^
already made up his mind long before the Gator Bowl.
February 1st, 2011 at 7:35 PM ^
My biggest bitch with the Hoke hire is and always has been the fact that Rich could have simply been given one more year and if it didn't work out where would Brady Hoke have been? Right there in good ol San Diego stayin classy and waiting ever so patiently for the same damn phone call.
February 1st, 2011 at 8:41 PM ^
But if things seem to be heading in the wrong direction, under under a coach you don't believe in, then maybe it's best to cut your losses and try to stabilize things asap.
February 1st, 2011 at 7:55 PM ^
1. RR used the same claim last year, that we'd improve "exponentially", and we did not, in fact, we regressed substantially on Defense AND on Special Teams.
2. RR says he could have had another job if they fired him earlier..... ok, he still thinks it is all about him and not the program. He had the chance vs tOSU but more especially, in the Bowl game.
February 1st, 2011 at 8:57 PM ^
in regards to number 2:
Why should he still be all in after getting fired? Nobody who gets fired from anywhere hopes that their former employer will succeed without them. You need to seperate "Michigan Head Football Coach" from "human being". It's not like he's going to watch every saturday to see how the team does.
February 1st, 2011 at 7:56 PM ^
mod delete
February 1st, 2011 at 7:55 PM ^
I wish he'd gotten a 4th year and had the decision been in my hands he would have gotten it. Still, it's difficult to fault Brandon for making the change considering how badly we faultered during the second haf of the season. RRod lost 6 out of his last 8 games (including the blowout in the bowl which I might add is the worst beating I've ever had to endure as a Michigan fan and almun). Had we been competitive in the bowl game (even in a loss) I think Rod would still have the job.
In any case there's no point in looking back at it now. Brady Hoke is our new leader and he's done an exceptional recruiting job given the difficult circumstances. I suspect the worst is behind us now and it's only a matter of time before we rise to prominence once again...
February 1st, 2011 at 7:58 PM ^
" In any case there's no point in looking back at it now. "
Well, figure that when RR starts talking about it, it'll force everyone to continue to look back at it, because it will be quite polarizing. Especially after he gets his next coaching job and is in the big spotlight again.
February 1st, 2011 at 8:15 PM ^
There are three points that no one in over hundred threads on the subject have provided:
1. Credible evidence that this was a 10-win team next year.
2. Credible evidence that Brandon did anything beyond what he has publicly stated during the whole process.
3. Credible evidence that Rodriguez inherited a decimated team in 2008.
The claims are made in some form over and again. At most they are supported by ad hominem arguments and usually nothing but the claims themselves.
Rodriguez earned his trip out of town with his job performance and the team's records. Good guy, but in way over his head as a head coach for Michigan.
February 1st, 2011 at 9:07 PM ^
Dude, now you're just being dense or disingenuous. I thought for a while there you were fair minded, but jebus:
1. Credible evidence that this was a 10-win team next year.
How the fuck can you have "evidence" for something that didn't happen yet? What does that even mean? But let's play:
- All starters returning but Schilling and (depending on how you count them) Webb and Dorrestein on offense, and Mouton and (depending on how you count them) Ezeh and Rogers on defense.
- Next year would have been the first time RR had a returning starter at QB. I'm not saying that wasn't his doing, but you asked for evidence.
- Weak ass schedule. I know, that's not evidence, given that one man's weak ass schedule is another's murderer's row. But you asked for evidence.
2. Credible evidence that Brandon did anything beyond what he has publicly stated during the whole process.
No one is saying he did other than what he said he would do. People are saying that what he said he was going to do and in fact did was fucking idiotic. The fact that he got Hoke, who I think will be very good, and Mattison, who I think will be great, is irrelevant. The process was fucking idiotic.
3. Credible evidence that Rodriguez inherited a decimated team in 2008.
What? How about the loss of Henne, Hart, Arrington, Manningham, Boren, and Mallett, and I'm probably missing a few. Whether or not you think RR ran the latter three out of town, the fact remains that he inherited a team with that many skill positions (plus Boren) missing on offense.
February 1st, 2011 at 8:33 PM ^
There is one thing everyone can agree on - RR is no longer Michigan's coach and to paraphrase one of his favorite statements, "we only talk about people/players who are on Michigan's team". It's over and done with - let's just move on.
February 1st, 2011 at 8:42 PM ^
Richrod, when complaining about the awkwardness of December, spews more bullshit:
"When jobs come open in the college level they come open in December. And had I been able to get on somewhere, that could have happened, too. I may have been able to get another head coaching job then. But I still had the belief we had things going to the point where we were going to be pretty good. Like I said, the worst was behind us."
Except it wasn't. See Gator Bowl.
February 1st, 2011 at 8:36 PM ^
the Cubs, the Lions, the Bengals, the Clippers, the St. Louis Blues. And so on and so on and so on...
February 1st, 2011 at 8:38 PM ^
February 1st, 2011 at 9:00 PM ^
I wonder what Section1 will have to say about this article. /s
February 1st, 2011 at 9:55 PM ^
Coach Rodriguez said nothing that I disagree with, or that is particularly controversial. What he said, I expect about 90% of the best-informed followers of Michigan football would agree with.
Not surprisingly, "mackbru" takes issue with the one statement by Rodriguez, that "the worst was behind us." His citing the Gator Bowl loss to Miss. St. makes a fair point, if it really addressed what Rodriguez meant. Personally, I think Rodriguez meant "the 2010 season" was figuratively behind them, although that of course isn't literally correct if one is hung up about the December 1-to-January 4 time period.
As a steadfast defender of Coach Rodriguez, I have to say that there are a lot of fair comments in this thread, both pro and con. A thread like this could not even exist for more than a half dozen posts at one of the snakepits like Freep.com or MLive.com.
NateVolk asks some questions about the future with Rich Rodriguez; the answers are unknowable. At least to me; I expect that nobody will ever be able to answer Nate's questions.
What I do know for a fact -- what David Brandon, Brian Cook, Jon Chait, most of MGoBlog, and Yours Truly, all know -- and what Rich Rodriguez has now rightly declared, is that he was the victim of an unbelievably, unconscionably bad press while here at Michigan. I'll never pass myself off as a technical critic of football coaches. You'll never read me substituting my football expertise for anyone else's. But what I do know, and what has always upset me, was that the general treatment of Coach Rodriguez was so unfair. I don't think anyone outside of the staff of the Detroit Free Press disagrees with me on that.
The last word may belong to John U. Bacon. I can hardly stand the waiting, until Third and Long is published this fall. I remember the waiting, until Michigan announced its Response to the NCAA Notice of Allegations. I had been convinced that Michigan would try its utmost to set the record straight with the NCAA and the public at large, but I had expected that David Brandon would be too solicitous of the media to go after the Free Press in the way that the paper deserved. And as it turns out I was very pleasantly surprised when a guy in Brandon's position, with so much to lose in a real media slugfest, ripped into the Freep. And he's never once backed down. For anyone who sees him at a meeting, a cocktail party, a fundraiser, a speech; whatever. Ask him about the Free Press and you will get him going.
Brandon's a guy who knows the story, and he thinks it was a travesty. If that's what Brandon knows, and says, what John U. Bacon has to say, might be explosive.
February 1st, 2011 at 10:17 PM ^
I'm going to give you a +1...just because it doesn't count.
February 1st, 2011 at 9:13 PM ^
For next season, if we win 8-10 games (though funny, no one seems ready to blame him if we win 6 or 7). But say we win 9 games, it's taken "Rich's team" 4 years to get to that level after he came into a program that won 9 games the year before he got here. (Then he would have had a hellacious 2012 schedule, and a post-Denard rebuild in 2013). All assuming we don't have more flip-flop in our close wins than our huge losses.
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<br>This is still a rebuilding job. This defense is every bit as bad as that 2008 offense (statistically, worse). If we win 9 games, and everyone around here wants to credit Rich Rod (because there won't be another place on the globe that happens), go to town, because I'll be glad just to have a team that isn't embarrassingly bad anymore, and don't really care who gets the credit at this point.
February 1st, 2011 at 11:51 PM ^
get over it already.
February 1st, 2011 at 9:23 PM ^
I really wish it had worked out, but I don't know if another year of the ame regime (even with an 8 or 9-win season) would have eased the building tension.
It was time for a change, and so far, I'm happy with the transition and new staff. RR will land on his feet and I will root for him to succeed.
February 1st, 2011 at 9:38 PM ^
this makes me sad. i liked richrod a lot and i am convinced we were on the edge of greatness
but since he's gone, i remind myself that we have greg mattison and it calms me down...a little
February 1st, 2011 at 9:53 PM ^
Isn't a coach supposed to take the blame and not put it on others?
I didn't like his record, but never had a problem with him in terms of anything off the field. These quotes, however, are super weak. He hoists the same lame "we didn't get a chance" mantra as posters on mgoblog. What coach says that even if he thinks it? "There was an agenda"? "It can be a great job if everyone is supporting you"? No one stopped him from winning. No one stopped him from changing people's opinion. He might as well have said, "They cheated". It's one thing for a fan to talk like that, but not a coach.
His talk about "our system works" sure if a doozy though. I wonder if anyone told him that his "system" doesn't have anything to do with defense.
February 1st, 2011 at 10:09 PM ^
Good point. Certain things were out of RR's control, and there was a lot about him that I liked. But the thing that turned me against RR (aside from, you know, the losing) was his endless pity-me party. I wish he'd just said "You know what? It's on me."
February 1st, 2011 at 10:02 PM ^
February 1st, 2011 at 10:13 PM ^
The delay was due to the projection that JH would take the job after his BCS bowl. However, JH went to the 49ers and DB got his coach BH. I would have given RR another two season but I thought the poor defensive performance the last two years was squarely on his shoulders by not hiring a top notch DC when he was hired here as coach and not realizing that the defense needed major help when he first arrived.
If JH was out of the equation, then DB probably would have fired RR after the OSU game and hired BH.
February 1st, 2011 at 10:35 PM ^
Scott Shafer is actually an excellent defensive coordinator. Rich Rod just didn't let him run what he was familiar with. The defense didn't need help when RR first arrived...in fact, it should have been at least as good if not better than 2007, the defensive line most of all.
February 1st, 2011 at 10:45 PM ^
I don't even want to read this. I'm over RR and all the associated drama. I don't give a shit. The last three years didn't happen.
February 1st, 2011 at 11:05 PM ^
Look, what do you expect the guy to say, that we would be worse in 2011? He's gone, the reasons for his failure and his record for the past three years have been outlined and debated ad nauseum in this forum with posts from the Decimated Defense to Free Press Jihad to Angry Michigan Hating Secondary God (Devil, if you ask me) and on and on.
Reality is that for all these reasons, some things definitely under RR's control (hiring and firing Shaefer as defensive coordinator and hiring Gerg as defensive coordinator for instance) and some things definitely not under his control (T-Wolf's ankle injury, Cissoko turning criminal, Some amount of Press and old Carr supporter animosities, etc) to somethings that we really don't know how much control he actually had (Boren, Mallett, Donovan Warren, et al).
Reality is that all of this led to RR's record and results. The real question was whether we would be better off in 2-3 years with him or without him. We'll only know now how we will be without him. So be it! Let's see where we are in 3 years and what the story says.
February 2nd, 2011 at 2:06 AM ^
Jebus! It's been a rough ride. I'm keeping my thoughts to myself. It's all been said.
DB, "I got my eyes on you".
"Don't you, forget about me...don't don't don't don't..."